


conjunctions

by sensira



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Frottage, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Mild Gore, Unhappy Ending, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:15:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22049983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensira/pseuds/sensira
Summary: '"Look, why don't we leave tomorrow? We could head to the coast. Get away for a while."'In some worlds, they do.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 54
Kudos: 533
Collections: The Witcher Alternate Universes





	conjunctions

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [conjunctions](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23789176) by [kseniamayer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kseniamayer/pseuds/kseniamayer)



> conjunction: [n] the action or an instance of two or more events or things occurring at the same point in time or space.

“Look, why don’t we leave tomorrow?” Geralt tenses as Jaskier settles softly beside him. “That is, if you give me another chance to prove myself a worthy travel companion.”

“We could head to the coast,” Jaskier pauses, uncharacteristically soft-spoken. “Get away for a while.”

There is a long moment where neither of them speak, looking out over the cliff towards the flaming sky. The sun is the color of Jaskier’s doublet, and it’s fading light leaves the red leather shimmering like scales.

Their shared silence has lasted too long—uncomfortably so, for a bard that never seems to shut up. Jaskier fidgets at his side, shifting his weight as he pushes himself up and removes himself from Geralt’s brooding.

In an instant, Geralt seizes Jaskier by the wrist, the other blinking down at his hand in confusion.

Geralt turns, mouth open, and—

*

Jaskier thrusts a bundle of clothes into his arms that he claims are the height of Redanian fashion but are the most horrendous combination of mustard and navy damask Geralt has ever seen. 

“I’m not wearing this.”

Jaskier has changed into something distressingly purple, preening in the mirror as he arranges for some hair to peak out from underneath his cap. “You are,” he says with the air of smug confidence. Geralt has been letting him win arguments too often. “It’s what’s in fashion this Spring. Besides, I hid the rest of your clothes while you were in the bath.”

This, Geralt already knows. He can smell the scent of Roach, sweat, and blood from the clothes presumably balled up inside Jaskier’s bag and shoved beneath the mattress. He _could_ throw the mustard monstrosity into the fireplace but Jaskier would whine, and somehow, that sound is infinitely worse than his singing. It’s not worth the energy to try and convince the bard otherwise.

“I could always not go,” Geralt replies, pulling on the trousers anyways.

“We’ll be rubbing arms with the best of Oxenfurt society!” In the mirror, Jaskier catches Geralt’s incredulous eyebrow. “Those academy scholars will pay handsomely for a Witcher’s services. I’m sure you’ll find someone who wants some nasty monster bits to study.”

Geralt pulls on the monstrosity of a jacket while Jaskier tucks a ridiculously long feather into the brim of his cap. He frowns at himself in the mirror, plucks it back out, moves it to the other side, and, after another hard look in the mirror, moves it back to the original spot. 

Purple suits him, Geralt notes. The women he’ll charm tonight are like to call him stupidly handsome, but with the feather flopping around in his cap, handsomely stupid might be a more apt description.

“Now, to mask that lingering onion scent of yours,” Jaskier pulls out a vial of scented oil with a flourish and, without warning, moves to smear it against Geralt’s neck. The Witcher tenses, seizes Jaskier’s wrist with such force that it spasms and sends flecks of oil splashing onto the floor. Geralt’s nose is flooded with bergamot and musk, he hears Jaskier’s heartbeat stutter and slightly speed up. The feather in his hat looks absurd; Geralt is struck with a terrible desire to set it aflame with Igni.

Jaskier pushes his hand forward, and Geralt relents just enough to let the bard slowly drag his wet fingers down the side of his neck. Their eyes meet, and the moment breaks; Geralt drops Jaskier’s wrist with a huff and—

*

It’s their third night in Toussaint and Jaskier thinks if Geralt finally decided to run him through with a blade, he would bleed wine out onto the inn floor. Eight cups in and the room is swimming, the flickering of the hearth making shadows dance in the rafters. Everything feels sped up—or, maybe, Jaskier himself has slowed down. His fingers dance down the lute out of habit; the lyrics of the song morphing into shapeless sounds.

He’s singing the kind of bawdy crowd-pleaser that tends to get him free drinks and several flirtatious fans. There’s a pretty chestnut-haired barmaid twirling her fingers in his hair and a curly ginger, her head pillowed against Jaskier’s knee, that smiles playfully up at him. She’s been inching her hand slowly up his leg for three songs, tapping her fingers against his inner thigh with the beat, hoping, Jaskier thinks, to coax some embarrassing sound of him mid-song.

On a particularly raunchy verse, he gives her a deliberate glance. Her green eyes light up with pleasure at the attention, giving him a pretty gap-toothed grin as her hand creeps closer to his crotch. Jaskier tries to give her a wink that the wine turns into a full blink, and when he opens his eyes again the woman’s eyes burn gold. 

He falters, takes a sharp inhale of breath when he shouldn’t, and the next note comes out too sharp and strained than it should. Ginger breaks out into peals of bright laughter, eyes as green as Spring, and presses a kiss against the side of his knee. Jaskier can feel his ears burning, tries to bring the song back on rhythm, as his eyes dart around the hazy room for something less distracting.

Jaskier’s always had an innate ability to pick Geralt out of a crowd, white hair and silver sword notwithstanding. Or, maybe, Jaskier’s just attuned himself to sense the witcher’s brooding aura. Either way, when the bard manages, through a haze of wine and smoke, to pick Geralt out from the crowd, the witcher has already spotted him first.

Geralt’s holed up in a corner table at the opposite end of the inn, bathed in shadow. His swords rest at his side but he sits facing the door.

Maybe it’s the wine—it’s definitely the wine, but in the dim light, Geralt’s amber eyes glow. The weight of them feels palpable, pressing down and setting him aflame. Eyes locked, Geralt slowly raises a mug of ale—an unusual choice, when one is in Toussaint—and takes a long, slow drink, staring at Jaskier over the rim.

Ginger takes the opportunity to give his balls a firm squeeze and Jaskier both chokes and yelps at the same time. The music comes to an abrupt end as the other patrons of the tavern erupt into laughter, likely having eaten up Ginger’s whole show, the assholes.

Jaskier manages four more songs before someone requests a melancholy ballad that leaves the mood sour and the wine running dry. He can feel Geralt’s heavy gaze pressing down on him the entire time.

*

The sky splits open, wrenched apart by a white flash of lightning. It lights up the thick underbrush and the outlines of the towering, imposing trees before the forest quickly disappears back into darkness. It’s raining so hard, Jaskier wonders if Roach will have to start to swim.

Geralt is tracking a group of wyverns and Jaskier is along for the ride, looking for inspiration for a new song. He’s soaked to the bone, the hood of his traveling cloak plastered to his forehead and dripping water down into his eyes. Times like these, where any modicum of creative thought have fled in the face of unignorable discomfort, are when Jaskier curses his past self for deciding to tag along instead of setting up in a nice inn and wait to needle Geralt about the details later.

The forest is the color of pitch, and between the darkness and the rain Jaskier can barely see beyond his hand and the glint of Geralt’s swords in their scabbard. He doubts Roach can see that well either, both of them trusting Geralt to lead them through the dark.

When Geralt finally brings Roach to a halt, Jaskier sighs in relief.

“Are we stopping for the night?”

Geralt slides off Roach and lands in inches of mud with a practiced ease. “There’s a tree hollow up ahead that should be big enough for the both of us.”

Jaskier inelegantly slips off Roach and nearly goes careening into an ocean of mud. “You want me to sleep in a tree?”

“You’re the one that wanted to come,” Geralt replies, securing Roach’s lead to a tree.

In the dark, Jaskier blindly follows Geralt to a behemoth of a tree, towering so high that its highest boughs disappear into rain and the night. At the base of the thick trunk, the bark splits, hollowed out by rot, but thankfully dry. It looks like an uncomfortably tight squeeze for the two of them, but between this and trying to sleep under the rain, Jaskier eagerly throws himself inside.

Geralt follows closely behind and everything quickly devolves into a storm of tangled limbs, swords, and his lute. In the end, Jaskier’s on his side facing the inner wall of the tree hollow, his lute pressed against his chest, and a wet cloak balled up underneath his head. Geralt’s back is pressed against his, wet and warm.

With the rhythm of the rain outside and the rich smell of wood, Jaskier starts to doze off, and then his mind—the traitor—starts running like a horse. Jaskier becomes preoccupied with how to rhyme a particularly difficult lyric, the discomfort of wet clothes pressed against his cool skin, remembers an annoying melody some second-rate Redanian bard tried to pass off as art, and oh—was that an insect that just crawled over his arm or did he just imagine it—

“Jaskier,” Geralt’s voice is bordering on annoyed. “Be still.”

“But—” Jaskier tries to protest. 

“Sleeping here for the night is not going to kill you,” Geralt warns. “But if you keep fussing, I will.”

Jaskier has never been scared of the witcher, even from the start, and he’s not likely to start taking his threats seriously anytime soon. He kicks back at Geralt’s leg with a huff, which the witcher responds to in kind. Jaskier most definitely does _not_ make a sound as pain blooms in his shin, but he does manage to fall asleep shortly after.

He’s in the midst of a warm, hazy dream when he wakes, the kind with soft kisses and slow touches, serenades and dancing, caskets of wine and sweetness on the tongue. Jaskier, half-asleep, presses his face up against something warm and mouths at the fabric there. In his dream, there’s a grand toast in his honor and someone pretty dressed in sheer organza draws the bard in for a kiss. Jaskier pulls them closer, rolls his hips and—

Jaskier wakes.

The world is bright, long past dawn and long past the time camp is usually packed up to return to the road. He blinks, trying to adjust to the light outside the tree, whines, and tries to burrow his body back into the warm and dark position it was in before. It takes him half a heartbeat to remember where he is and jerk his head up in shock.

Jaskier must have rolled in his sleep because his face in buried in Geralt’s side, hand resting on his chest, and his crotch pressed firmly against Geralt’s hip, still hard. Geralt is perfectly still, looks like he could still be asleep, apart from the fact that he’s watching Jaskier with his heavy gaze.

Face suddenly hot, Jaskier wonders how long Geralt’s been awake and tries to conjure up something, anything to say. Before he can open his mouth, the witcher shifts and Jaskier audibly chokes at the friction.

Not breaking his gaze, Geralt _slowly_ lifts up Jaskier’s arm from his chest and sets it down to rest against the ground. The witcher climbs out of the tree hollow, fastens his swords over his back, and squats down to peer back at Jaskier with his amber eyes.

“Are you hungry?” Geralt asks, simply.

“Yeah,” Jaskier replies, biting the inside of his cheek. He doesn’t know what he’s hungry for.

*

Jaskier comes to with a mouth full of dirt and blood. His head is pounding, ears ringing; his left eye can’t focus and the world spins as he crawls out of the dirt and muck to rest on his knees. There’s something hot and wet sliding down the side of his face and when he reaches up to wipe it away, his hand comes away scarlet.

He’s at the bottom of a steep, tall hill that—going off the throbbing pain in his entire body— he must have fallen down. If Jaskier remembers correctly, over the peak should be the quiet side road he had been traveling with Geralt—

Ah, yes. Geralt.

Everything starts comes back in disjointed pieces. Five brigands had jumped them on the road; two of them had ripped Jaskier off of Roach and thrown him off the ridge. The bastards. When the ringing in his ears subsides, Jaskier slowly pulls himself to his feet and half crawls, half climbs up the steep hill face. He vomits once and retches twice along the way, head spinning from the movement.

When he makes it back to the road, Geralt and Roach are nowhere in sight, but there’s a corpse with a gaping hole in their throat and someone else’s arm lying in the dust. There’s an unspoken rule, but if Jaskier wants to find Geralt, sometimes the easiest method is to follow the destruction left in the witcher’s wake.

He follows the road and finds the rest of the man the arm was attached to, slumped against a tree and bathed in his own blood. If Jaskier strains his ears, he thinks he can almost hear the clash of steel in the distance underneath the persisting, faint ringing. The man with the missing arm is clutching a dagger in his remaining hand and Jaskier stumbles unsteadily, reaches down and pries it from the dead man’s grip with a murmured apology.

Following the sounds of battle into the woods, he finds another man impaled against a tree on his own sword. Jaskier tries not to look too closely, moves as quickly as his swaying legs will take him.

There’s a shout, the screaming of steel; Jaskier pulls himself around a tree and enters a small clearing full of flowers. There are two brigands left: a nasty-looking one with a sword and a behemoth of a man wielding an iron morning star and flail almost half the size of Jaskier.

He makes Geralt look small, maybe a whole foot and a half taller; difficult on his own, but with his smaller, sword-wielding companion he becomes a challenge. Geralt dodges one strike to nearly be hit by the other.

Finally, in frustration, the witcher knocks the smaller one back with—Aard, Jaskier guesses—and drops to his knees to dodge the morning star that swings over his head.

Then, Geralt leaps up like a dancer and—

Morning Star lands a solid hit against Geralt’s chest that sends him flying across the clearing and slamming into a tree with a sharp crack, but not before Geralt lodges his entire sword into his ribcage. The mountain of a man collapses like an ancient tree, slowly, groaning, and hitting the earth with a monstrous thud.

Geralt is not getting up, Jaskier realizes, but the last brigand has and is crossing the clearing, sword glinting in the sun. The witcher stirs, tries to push himself up before his left shoulder gives out and he’s back in the dirt.

Geralt’s pushed himself to his knees, bringing his sword up to block, right as the brigand tries to swing.

The blow doesn’t come.

Jaskier thrusts his stolen dagger into the brigand’s neck. It’s messy, imprecise; red, hot blood spurts everywhere—into Jaskier’s hair, seeps into his clothes, coats his hands. He stumbles back, world spinning red, and watches a man die at his feet.

Geralt pushes himself up. He’s downed one of those strange Witcher potions Jaskier’s never learned the name of, and his eyes are the color ink, veins exaggerated and black in his paper-white face. The splatters of blood on his face make hundreds of tiny, violent constellations.

“Jaskier,” he breathes. Geralt steps over the corpse and crowds into his bard’s space.

He looks up. The gash on his forehead is dripping blood into his eyes. Jaskier thinks he might be crying; panic scorching through his throat.

Geralt hooks a hand around the back of his neck and the licks blood off of his teeth. “You’re safe,” he says. Not quite a question.

Jaskier’s not quite sure what he’s supposed to be safe from.

There is blood on his hands, and not the kind you can wash out.

“I’m safe,” Jaskier echoes.

There is something unreadable and incomprehensible in Geralt’s black eyes. “Good,” he says, and then surges forward to bring their lips together.

Their teeth clack together, and Jaskier’s mouth fills with the taste of blood, bile, and abruptly the tang of irrational, crazed desire. Geralt pushes him roughly against a nearby tree but cradles the back of Jaskier’s head to keep it from cracking against the bark, shoves a knee between his legs.

Jaskier moans loud enough to wake the dead, brings his hands up to tangle in Geralt’s hair and tugs him closer. Geralt kisses feverishly; Jaskier is burning up in an overwhelming cascade of adrenaline, pain, and desire that Geralt’s grinding sends him over the edge with just a few quick movements.

When he comes, Jaskier’s tongue is shoved so far down the witcher’s throat he can taste the herbs that made Geralt all terrifyingly white, black and red _—_

*

Jaskier settles into Geralt’s lap with a quiet sigh, sending a wave of hot water over the side of the bath. Habitually, the witcher rests a hand on his hip to steady him, reluctant to have the bard spill any more water of the bath that Geralt paid for.

Jaskier’s been bold lately. Geralt’s still not quite sure where they stand.

The bard is uncharacteristically quiet, voice strained from the five-hour performance at today’s inn, but his eyes are sharp with desire. He drags his hands up Geralt’s chest to rest on his shoulders as he leans in. Jaskier drags his mouth over Geralt’s cheek, brushes their noses together, and captures Geralt’s mouth in a warm, sweet kiss.

It’s _too_ soft, _too_ tender, the featherlight weight of Jaskier’s hands resting on his shoulders feel like the claws of a striga pinning him down. Geralt tenses up, feels like a caged beast that needs to taste blood. Something burns low in his belly, not quite fear, but a visceral uncertainty from his unfamiliarity. He knows how to fight, how to brew blade oils that can cut down specters, and twelve different ways to deal with an Endrega nest.

Witchers learn to kill, maim, and, in Geralt’s case, inevitably ruin everything they touch.

He thinks about the scar on Jaskier’s forehead. The blood on his hands.

Maybe Jaskier won’t break so easily.

He bites down hard on Jaskier’s bottom lip until the comfortingly familiar sharp tang of blood wets his tongue. Geralt watches his bright eyes fly open and Jaskier—damn him—surges forward with a moan—

*

Geralt brings Jaskier to Kaer Morhen because he can. It’s the height of summer and the rest of his kind are out on the Path. The castle will stand empty until the first of winter’s chill rolls in and what few Witchers remain will journey home.

“So, you’re essentially sneaking me into your house like teenage peasants do,” Jaskier says, one arm loosely slung around Geralt’s waist.

He elects to not comment on that.

At his silence, Jaskier laughs, and leans forward, “What? Don’t want Daddy Witcher to catch you cavorting with a lowly minstrel?”

“Of course not,” Geralt says, straight-faced. “I would be ashamed.”

Jaskier gasps in mock-outrage, pretends to throw himself off of Roach and actually starts to tip out of the saddle. Geralt has to reach an arm back to steady his bard and urges Roach up the pass to the keep.

In a way, Jaskier is not entirely wrong. Geralt has deliberately brought him to Kaer Morhen because Vesemir, Lambert and Eskel have departed for the season. The witcher’s keep is isolated, empty and vast, drowning in age and secrets time has long since rotted away.

And here, in a place abandoned by history and time, they can be as loud as they like.

That night, Jaskier’s chorus of moans and shouts echo against ancient stone and sound prettier than anything Geralt’s ever heard him sing.

*

“When I said coast,” Jaskier whines, swaddled in Geralt’s stolen cloak. The chill wind has turned the tip of his nose a brilliant red. “This isn’t quite what I had in mind.”

The Cidaris coast has never been a very appealing destination, even less so in the throes of mid-Autumn. It’s perpetually cloudy, with cold winds and a storm always brewing on the horizon.

“Not up to your standards?” Geralt asks. He turns his face into the wind and breathes in the sea. “And after I brought you all the way here.”

“You’re the one who took so long to get us here,” his bard replies, sidling up to the witcher. A particularly large gust of wind sends the hood of Geralt’s cloak off and tousles Jaskier’s hair rakishly. 

There’s some sort of finality to this, Geralt thinks. By all accounts, this is the end of their journey together, having finally arrived at a destination that seemed so far off in the beginning. Destiny, which seems aggressively determined to prove its existence, is like to send them their separate ways and set Geralt unwillingly back on his path towards Cintra and the child he never claimed.

Abruptly, Geralt realizes he doesn’t want Jaskier to leave, but he doesn’t quite know how to ask him to stay.

“You’re brooding quite loudly,” Jaskier presses his shoulder against Geralt’s and intertwines their fingers together.

“Hm,” Geralt replies.

“Hm, indeed,” he teases. “As lovely as Cidaris is, I think I have seen enough of her.” Geralt tenses. Jaskier squints up at him against the wind, petulant mouth twisted into something playfully curious. “So, my dear witcher, I must ask, where are we off to next?”

They’re about two days ride from Bremervoord; they could charter a ship to Kaer Trolde and hole up for the winter. He could hunt ice trolls and watch Jaskier parade himself around dressed in furs and Skellige tartans. They could head back South, into Toussaint, and rent a week in an inn with nothing but food, oil, and wine. Or, perhaps they could go East, into Zerrikania, visit parts of the world that not even Geralt has seen.

Destiny, Geralt realizes, is much like a drowner, hiding in dark water and waiting to pull you down, kicking and screaming, to your grave.

Fuck it, honestly.

Geralt faces the horizon, takes in the taste of salt and spray, the sound of the waves crashing against the cliff face and Jaskier’s beating heart, the smell of water and the wood of the bard’s treasured lute. He realizes, with a rumbling pleasure, that Jaskier _reeks_ of Geralt; he can smell himself in Jaskier’s hair, against his throat, his _cock_ —

“I’m not sure,” Geralt says, and something unfurls in his chest, satisfied. He has two swords and there are monsters everywhere. The Path has never been wider than it is today. “But we’ll take the long way around.”

*

Geralt turns, teeth bared in a feral snarl, and Jaskier reels back and blinks in shock. “Damn it, Jaskier! Why is it whenever I find myself in a pile of shit these days, it’s you shoveling it?”

“Well, that’s not fair,” Jaskier starts, quiet, but Geralt interrupts, eyes glowing with rage. 

“The Child Surprise, the djinn, all of it! If life could give me on blessing, it would be to take you off my hands.”

Geralt turns and stalks away; Jaskier frozen. In this terrible, hushed and strangled quiet, something breaks between them, like a snapped string on a lute. A thousand different stories will never be told, there will be no songs to be sung. Not anymore.

“Right,” Jaskier pauses, weighed down by disappointment and dismay and hurt. “I’ll go get the rest of the story from the others.”

He hesitates. It feels wrong to turn his back on Geralt. Then, voice thick, says “See you around, Geralt.”

Jaskier leaves.

Geralt does not watch him go.

**Author's Note:**

> haha wow. the witcher and his bard, am i right?
> 
> i guess i wanted this to be an exploration on their characters? i feel like Jaskier would be a very tender and emotional lover and that clashes with geralt, who viceversa, is very unfamiliar with tenderness or tender intimacy and is very familiar with a very violent, frenzied kind of relationship. i'd like to think they'd work out in different places, different times maybe. Jaskier and Geralt are an interesting ship but i feel like they're not sustainable no matter how much i want them to be at least in canon. Destiny just refuses to let Geralt go, I suppose. 
> 
> Anyways, it's time to go play witcher 3 wild hunt. thank you to all of you who read or enjoyed this! please leave a kudos or a comment if you wish <3 i would love to hear from you guys.


End file.
